“After this,” she continued, “a further stay in Aix would be too painful. We have decided to take the Savoy express this evening and get back to our quiet home in Somerset.”
“Ah, madame,” said Aristide earnestly. “And shall I not have the pleasure of seeing the charming Miss Betty again?”
“You will come and stay with us in September. Let me see? The fifteenth. Why not fix a date? You have my address? No? Will you write it down?” she dictated: “Wrotesly Manor, Burnholme, Somerset. There I’ll try to show you how grateful I am.”
She extended her hand. He bowed over it and kissed it in his French way and departed a very happy man.
The Erringtons left that evening. Aristide waylaid them as they were entering the hotel omnibus, with a preposterous bouquet of flowers which he presented to Betty, whose pretty face was hidden by a motor-veil. He bowed, laid his hand on his heart and said: “Adieu, mademoiselle.”
“No,” she said in a low voice, but most graciously, “Au revoir, Monsieur Pujol.”
For the next few days Aix seemed to be tame and colourless. In an inexplicable fashion, too, it had become unprofitable. Aristide no longer knew that he was going to win; and he did not win. He lost considerably. So much so that on the morning when he was to draw the cash for the cheque, at the Crédit Lyonnais, he had only fifty pounds and some odd silver left. Aristide looking at the remainder rather ruefully made a great resolution. He would gamble no more. Already he was richer than he had ever been in his life. He would leave Aix. Tiens! why should he not go to his good friends the Bocardons at Nîmes, bringing with him a gold chain for Bocardon and a pair of ear-rings for the adorable Zette? There he would look about him. He would use the thousand pounds as a stepping-stone to legitimate fortune. Then he would visit the Erringtons in England, and if the beautiful Miss Betty smiled on him—why, after all, sacrebleu he was an honest man, without a feather on his conscience.
So, jauntily swinging his cane, he marched into the office of the Crédit Lyonnais, went into the inner room and explained his business.
“Ah, your cheque, monsieur, that we were to collect. I am sorry. It has come back from the London bankers.”
“How come back?”